Week 01- Class Activity: Formal and Informal articles on Mozart’s Music

Article A
THE MOZART EFFECT: HOW MUSIC MAKES YOU SMARTER

Have you ever noticed how your favorite music can make you feel better? Well, new research
studies now show how music can make you smarter too!
Scientists at Stanford University, in California, have recently revealed a molecular basis for the
“Mozart Effect”, but not other music. Dr. Rauscher and her colleague H. Li, a geneticist, have
discovered that rats, like humans, perform better on learning and memory tests after listening to a
specific Mozart’s Sonata. Recently, a new book called The Mozard Effect by Don Campbell, has
condensed the world’s research on all the beneficial effects of certain types of music.

Some of the hundreds of benefits are:

 Improves test scores

 Cuts learning time
 Calms hyperactive children and adults
 Reduces errors
 Improves creativity and clarity
 Heals the body faster
 Integrates both sides of the brain for more efficient learning
 Raises IQ scores 9 points (research done at University of California, Irvine)

In 1996, the College Entrance Exam Board Service conducted a study on all students taking their
SAT exams. Students who sang or played a musical instrument scored 51 points higher on the
verbal portion of the test and an average of 39 points higher on math. Major corporations such as
Shell, IBM, and Dupont, along with hundreds of schools and universities use music, such as
certain Baroque pieces, to cut learning time in half and increase retention of the new materials.
In my teacher and parent training seminars, I have been using music for years as a strategy to
reduce learning time and increase students’ memory of the material. Music activates the whole
brain and makes you feel more energetic.

Listen to these tapes when you study, work or drive in the car to receive the tremendous benefits.
This is the music of such composers as Mozart, Vivaldi, Pachabel, Handel and Bach. I use these
tapes every day and found them to be extraordinarily effective.

Each CD or tape has specially selected music to enhance learning, spatial intelligence, creativity
and body awareness.
Copyright @ 2011 The Center For New Discoveries in Learning, Inc.
 Week 01- Class Activity: Formal and Informal articles on Mozart’s Music

Article B

The influence of Mozart’s music on brain activity in the process of learning

Jausovec N., Jausovec K, and Gerlic I.

Department of Education, Universza v Mariboru. Pedagoska fakulteta, Koroska 160, 2000 Maribor, Slovenia.
Norbert.jausovec@uni-mb.si<norbert.jausovec@uni-mb.si>

OBJECTIVE

The study investigated the influence Mozart’s music has on brain activity in the process of
learning. A second objective was to test priming explanation of the Mozart effect.

METHODS

In Experiment 1 individuals were first trained in how to solve spatial rotation tasks and then
solved similar tasks. Fifty-six students were divided into 4 groups: a control one—CG who prior
to and after taining relaxed, and three experimental groups. MM—who prior to and after training
listened to music; MS—who prior to training listened to music and subsequently relaxed; and
SM—who prior to training relaxed and afterward listened to music. The music used was the first
movement of Mozart’s sonata (K.448). In Experiment 2, thirty-six respondents were divided
into three groups: CG, MM (same procedure as in Experiment 1), and BM—who prior to and
after training listened to Brahms’ Hungarian dance No. 5. In both experiments the EEG data
collected during problem solving were analyzed using the methods of event-related
desynchronization/synchronization (ERD/ERS) and approximated entropy (ApEn).

RESULTS

In the first experiment the respondents of the MM, MS, and SM groups showed a better task-
performance than did the respondents of the CG group. Individuals of the MM group displayed
less complex EEG patterns and more alpha band synchronization than did respondents of the
other three groups. In Experiment 2, individuals who listened to Mozart showed a better task
performance than did the respondents of the CG and BM groups. They displayed less complex
EEG patterns and more lower-1 alpha and gamma band synchronization than did the respondents
of the BM group.

CONCLUSIONS

Mozart’s music, by activating task-relevant brain areas, enhances the learning of spatio-temporal
rotation tasks.

SIGNIFICANCE

The results support priming explanation of the Mozart effect.

 Week 01- Class Activity: Formal and Informal articles on Mozart’s Music

FORMALITY AND INFORMALITY: DIFFERENCES IN ARTICLES

Read the two articles on Mozart’s music and describe the features for each in the table below:

ARTICLE A ARTICLE B

Audience

Tone

Vocabulary

Style

Language

Content

Organization